Motivational March!

          Okay, I know that was a cheesy title for this post. :) It's very ironic that the vote was cast and motivation won. I'm having an extremely hard time staying motivated to update this blog frequently which has forced me to think about motivational techniques that can be applied to our every day lives and not just to fitness (though I promise these tips work super well in the fitness area as well). 

          There are basic things we need when starting out with something new (fitness routines, blog updates, home projects, and so on) to keep us going and I've found that these things are vital to success. Sure there may be some of you out there who are super good at keeping yourself motivated and can plow through whatever it is you're trying to achieve. Most of us are not so lucky and we need help! I've got a list of things we need to help us and bear in mind that these are in no particular order. I couldn't come up with a good order to do these in since it really depends on you, but here are some things that can help you stay motivated:

1. Be accountable to someone! Every day I have a list of things I want to do (yes, exercise is on there) but no one is checking up on that list to see what I've done everyday but me and it's really easy to come up with excuses about why I didn't do things. I can't always make myself do things but I can let other people know what those tasks are and have them ask me how I'm doing on my list. My husband frequently asks how the list went and I always want to report something good (so he knows I don't sit home all day and do nothing) so I'm extra motivated to get things done. When I joined Weight Watchers for four months last fall I joined with my sister-in-law, We both chose the online program and we chose the same weigh-in day. Every Friday we would sent a text to report how much we had lost that week (or gained,  heaven forbid). I never wanted to report weight gain so I made sure I stuck extra close to my routine in order to always report a weight loss. (And I'm super competitive and I didn't want her to lose while I gained haha.) My husband recently wrote out some fitness goals of his and was having a very hard time keeping to them. He asked me to remind him every day that he had some exercising to do and he was able to stay more on track with his goals.

Having someone there to remind you (even if they live far away, they can still call you) that you have some work to do, or to ask you how well you've done this week helps you to keep pushing through those tough days because none of us want to report anything bad!

2. Get feedback! This one goes a little bit with number 1 simply because a great way to have feedback is through the people you have made yourself accountable to. If you had a bad week, tell them why you think that is and don't be afraid to ask them for help to avoid those problems you had. You can also get feedback from yourself. Sit down at the end of each week and write down how you felt throughout the week. Did you have more energy this week after exercising more? Did you slip up some days? Were there things that kept you from doing your workout? What were they? Write down everything you felt about your goals and then divide that into things that went well and things that didn't. Take some time to find ways to make those things that went well a habit, and find out how to make things that didn't go well disappear.

3. Take measurements! Whether you want to lose weight or tone up, taking measurements is a great way to see if you've stayed on track. It's also a great motivator. When your measurements improve, you get positive feedback and it makes you want to keep doing well. When we slip up and our measurements plateau or regress, it gives us negative feedback which causes us to have a deeper resolve to do better next week. Keep in mind that taking measurements every day is not a good idea. These things take time so only measure every week or even every 2 weeks. Some ideas of things you want to measure are: chest, waist, hips, thighs, biceps, calves, neck, shoulders, and of course, the weigh-in. You don't have to take measurements for all of those things. You can pick and chose which parts you want to measure but be sure to be consistent. Always measure the same things at the same time of day (I like to do my weigh-in and measurements in the morning before breakfast), and the same amount of time apart (I weight every week and measure every 2 weeks).

4. Give yourself a pat on the back. If you're constantly too hard on yourself you're going to give up. Recognize that no one is perfect. The only reason our favorite celebrities look the way they do is because they have constant access to personal trainers, nutritionists, planners, and massage therapists. If we could afford what they do and if our careers depended on having a perfect body, we could do that too. Any success needs to be rewarded (though preferable not with pigging out all weekend because you did such a good job out your workout this week, that's a little counterproductive haha) and realize that even small successes should be rewarded. Back before I lived off student loans I would reward a certain amount of weight loss with a shopping trip, or new fitness equipment (or yes, sometimes eating out, but only one meal!). Let yourself feel good with what you've accomplished even if you haven't reached your long-term goal just yet. And enjoy the journey! We learn a lot about ourselves through our successes and our failures. Give yourself a pat on the back and if things don't go your way, try, try again!

Rear End Circuits

Here's a great routine of mine guaranteed to lift your spirits and your butt!

First, plug into some awesome music. You just might need it to help you through!
Equipment needed:
- step stool
- exercise band (preferably the band, not the tube, but really either one will work)
- exercise mat (not essential but nice if you have one)

We'll start standing for a few exercises (in a circuit), break, and then progress to the floor for a circuit (and don't expect to get a break just because you're on the floor).
Warm up but marching in place, dancing around, or whatever you like to do to get your body warm. It really doesn't matter what you do as long as you're moving, elevating your heart rate, and getting your body warm. This first exercise especially is going to be a bit of a cardio move so really get your blood pumping!
Remember, this is your first circuit which means you're going to do all of these exercises in a row with minimal rest between. (Minimal as in, the time it takes you to set up for the next move.)

Circuit 1:
- Stand a step or two behind your step stool to start. Step up with your right leg and bring your left knee up, immediately step back with your left foot and then step back once more with your right foot into a lunge position. Return to starting position. Do one set of 12 on your right leg and then one set of 12 on your left leg.
- Stand with your right foot on the step stool and your left foot hanging off the side of the stool. Do a single leg squat by bending your right knee (you may have to pick up your left foot so that it does not touch the ground as you squat) and going down as far as you can before coming back up to the start. You may want to hold your arms out in front or to the sides for balance. Remember to maintain proper squatting technique by sticking your rear end out as you squat, back straight, keeping your head and chest up. You should be pushing through your heel, not the ball of your foot. Do one set of 12 on your right leg and then one set of 12 on your left leg.
- Set your stool aside (yay!), take your exercise band and tie it around your legs, just below the knee, so that it is taught when your feet are only about 6 inches apart. With hands on your hips, take 10 wide (as wide as you can manage) steps to your right and then 10 steps back to your left. Repeat. To make this exercise a little more intense, squat down a little while you step.
- Keep that band tied nice and taught around your legs. You may want a chair or a wall to help you balance through this exercise. Putting all of your weight on your left leg and maintaining good posture, lift your right leg behind you as far as you can against the band. Try to keep your left knee slightly bent to be sure you're not locking your knee. Do 8 lifts, followed by 8 pulses (quick, small movements) and then turn your toes outward and do 8 more lifts behind. Repeat on opposite leg.

Horray, you've finished circuit 1! Take a small break and stretch your glutes out before beginning the next circuit. For circuit 2 you'll be one the floor so get out your mat if you've got one (and don't get too comfy).

Circuit 2:
- Remember those hip raises from my last post? We're going with variation #2 on this one! So get that exercise band and tie it nice and tight around your legs just above the knee. When you get to the top of your hip raise, be sure to squeeze your glutes, press out against that band, and hold for 3 seconds. Do one set of 15.
- Turn to one side and prop yourself up on your elbow. Move the band down so that it is over your knees (you'll probably have to tighten the band after the hip raises). Keep your hips stacked and your knees bent. This move is called a clam shell so imagine your knees opening up like a clam shell while your feet stay stacked on top of each other. Do one set of 12 and then another set of 12 on the opposite leg.
- Untie your band and move to your hands and knees. Hands should be directly below your shoulders (don't sag between your shoulder blades) and your knees should be directly below your hips. Holding both ends of your band in your right hand, hook your right foot into the band and kick out behind you. (If your band is rather short, like mine, you can tie the band around your foot with one end and hold onto the other end. Just make sure to tie a good knot so it doesn't come loose and snap you!) Do one set of 12 on your right foot and then one set of 12 on your left.
- Toss the band aside, you're done with that! Lay flat on your stomach with your arms stretched out in front of you. Lift your upper body and your lower body as high off the floor as you can (sort of like trying to balance on your stomach...), squeeze your glutes like there is no tomorrow, and hold this position from 30-60 seconds. As you get stronger, try alternately moving your arms and legs up and down (for those of you familiar with Pilates this move is usually called swimming.)
And hooray! You've made it through circuit 2! Make sure to take some time to stretch out your hips and butt, you deserve it! (And you'll regret it tomorrow if you don't!)

Hip Raises

          We all want a nice backside that we can feel proud to show off in our favorite pair of jeans or in a swimsuit right? A nice, high, round bottom is something we want and something we can be proud of. Unfortunately, with all of the sitting we do these days (whether it's because we're sitting at work or sitting at home...) our hip muscles grow weaker and the forget how to work for us. What does this mean? A saggy backside and a nice little pooch out front. Did I say a pooch? Why yes I did. Weak glutes cause your hips to tilt forward giving you the appearance of a pooch. Um, yeah that's the last thing we need when we're already worried about our rear, yikes!

          Today's exercise is one most of you probably know already and that's the hip raise. If you already know the move, why read on? Because I've got a host of variations to work the muscle differently and produce different results that you love. This exercise is awesome because it works your glutes and your hamstrings but it also causes you to activate the muscles in your lower back and your abdominal muscles which means you're working your core at the same time. Yay! We love exercises that work lots of muscles at the same time!

          The main exercise is to lie face up on the floor (or on your nifty mat) with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor. It's best if you've got your arms out to the sides (away from your body) so you can't cheat by pushing down on the floor at your sides during the move. Pushing through your heels (not your toes), raise your hips up until your body is in a straight line from knees to shoulders. You should be able to lay an imaginary board on your body and have it lie flat against your body from knees to shoulders. Pause for up to 5 seconds (squeeze your glutes while holding) and then slowly move back downward into the starting position. Ta-da! That's it! Two or three sets of 10 to 12 reps is ideal, however you need to do sets and reps according to your current fitness level.

Variation #1: Add a weight to this exercise by holding a weight plate (if you don't have weight plates use another type of weight, big heavy books work too...) on your hips as you perform the exercise.

Variation #2: Tie an exercise band just above your knees and press out lightly as you perform the exercise. This helps to further engage your gluteus maximus and your gluteus medius.

Variation #3: Place a rolled up towel between your knees and try to hold it there as you perform the exercise. Inability to hold you knees together indicates a weakness in your hip adductors (groin muscles). This variation will strengthen those muscle as well.

Variation #4: Raise your hips up and hold them there for the duration of the set. Slowly lift one knee to your chest and then lower back to the start. Alternate knees. You do not lower your hips back to the ground after every knee lift. Keep you hips lifted until you finish your set.

Variation #5: Lay flat on your back and raise your lower legs up onto an exercise ball, still keeping your knees bent. Raise and lower your hips with your lower legs on the exercise ball.

Variation #6: Place the bottoms of your feet on the exercise ball and raise your hips up. This variation is the same as #4, only your feet are on the exercise ball instead of on the ground. Do not allow your hips to sag!

          I hope you find these hip raise variations challenging and a great way to bust your butt this month! I'll be posting more great moves to shape your rear and I'll include some great routines to give you an amazing, but busting workout so check back often! Also, don't forget to take the poll for March!

February is the Month to Bust Your Butt!

          And we have a winner! February's focus will be on butt busting workouts! I know we're halfway through the month but I have a confession to make and I promise this is a very good excuse for neglecting you all for so long. I'm pregnant! And not only that, I'm literally sick and tired so it's been rough trying to do anything so the blog has taken a back seat. Sorry! But I'll try my best to make things better by helping you to get a better butt this month!

          This post is super short but I wanted to get you started right away since I took a break for a few weeks. This workout comes from fitnessmagazine.com and I love it! The first time I did it I had been running for a few months and had figured my butt was pretty toned. Boy was I wrong! I was so sore the next day! Check this video out and give it a try! It's only 5 minutes and you can add it to your regular toning routine during the week. Check back soon for some of my personal butt busting workouts (and don't forget to take next month's poll)!

The HCG Diet

          I’ve wanted to post an article on the HCG diet for some time now but felt I should do a little research first. I have very strong feelings about this diet and wanted some hard facts before I started spewing out what I thought. This post is going to be a little different from those I’ve written previously but I think this is very much worth your time in reading.

HCG is short for human chorionic gonadotropin and is a hormone produced during pregnancy. To make a long story short it aids in the growth of the embryo and placenta. This same HCG hormone is what is used in the HCG diet (obviously, since it bears the name of the hormone it uses). Most HCG diets require a daily injection of HCG (now you can buy drops that you put under your tongue 3 to 6 times per day depending on which company you buy from) and you are placed on a VLCD which is short for Very Low Calorie Diet. This VLCD consists of a mere 500 calories per day and severely limits the variety of foods you are allowed to eat. This diet is sustained for 40 days or until you reach about 30 pounds at which time they will stop your HCG diet for a certain amount of time before letting you go another round. Many doctors will suggest this diet to patients looking to lose large amounts of weight and weight loss clinics will offer this diet to anyone looking for fast results. The claim is that you can lose 1-2 pounds of fat per day without being hungry or irritable.

My goodness that sounds amazing doesn’t it? But let’s stop and think about what we’ve learned. Let’s start with the VLCD. In January’s focus topic we covered nutrition. Food is essential. Yes, it can lead us to gain weight if we eat the wrong things, but the fact remains that we need food to sustain life. Our body has what’s called a basic metabolic rate. Your BMR is the amount of energy (measured in calories) that your body needs to sustain life in a state of rest. This number is different from person to person but we all have it and if we fail to reach that level, we fail to function. When I say fail to function I don’t mean we have a bad day and try again tomorrow. I mean that basic bodily functions begin to shut down to preserve energy. This means even your brain activity takes a hit.

Our bodies need to have enough energy for our BMR plus some. We don’t all just sit on the couch all day and never move. Even the laziest person has to walk to the kitchen for a snack, or walk to the bathroom, or get out of bed just to make it to the couch. All of this takes energy. Using more energy means needing more calories. The majority of us lead fairly active lives. Mothers are constantly chasing kids around the house/park/store/wherever. Most people have jobs that require them to move around, even if it’s just a little bit. Even thinking burns calories. Again, we use more energy than just what our BMR requires so we have to consume more than our BMR worth of calories to function normally. Eating only 500 calories per day is so dangerous. I cannot impress upon you the seriousness of that. I have no words to describe how dangerous a 500 calorie per day diet can be. Most likely, 500 calories is lower than your BMR which means your body is starting to metabolize muscle along with some fat (causing the muscles in your body to atrophy) because it needs the extra energy and less important bodily functions (but important nonetheless) stop working to preserve energy. Things like digestion, supplying blood which brings heat (a form of energy) to your extremities, and some brain activities are shutting down because your body does not have enough energy to keep them working.

Along with your VLCD that the HCG diet plans, you have your daily injection (or your drops) of human chorionic gonadotropin. Most of us have hormonal imbalances already because our diets are so filled with processed foods and preservatives and most of us haven’t been able to tell that our hormones are out of whack; some, on the other hand, struggle with various issues due to hormonal imbalances. Having a daily injection of yet another hormone that does not belong in your body in those quantities is asking for more hormonal imbalances. People often joke about “hormonally challenged” women PMS, and other things however hormonal imbalances don’t just bring on mood swings. It can cause unexplained weight gain, high blood pressure, inability to lose weight, infertility, and a host of other nasty things that we really don’t want to deal with. Human chorionic gonadotropin does exist naturally in our bodies at a very, very small level. Pregnancy brings on some very high HCG levels and a lot of women are left with serious hormonal imbalances after a pregnancy. Putting hormones into your body that do not belong there (or have not been prescribed to you for medical reasons) is just not a good idea.

Almost everyone who uses this diet sees results. There’s no denying that. People have lost upwards of 60 pounds using a few rounds of the HCG diet. I did not write this article to try to make you believe that the diet does not work. I wrote this to warn you of the serious dangers of this diet. As I’ve said before, I have some very strong feelings towards the HCG diet and those who suggest this method of weight loss. It’s just not safe. The risks involved are not worth it. If you want to lose weight and stay healthy then you need to eat right and exercise. There is no way around it. Sure you can lose 60 pounds on the HCG diet but being left with hormonal imbalances and traumatizing your body is so not worth it. Chances are you’ll be forking out another $700 to go another round of HCG because you didn’t keep it off. I know that the companies report 70% of people have found it easy to keep the weight off but don’t buy it. In order to have permanent weight loss you need to make lifestyle changes. You need to heat healthier (and 500 calories per day is NOT healthy no matter what anyone says) and you need to exercise. Do not fall for the HCG diet or any other diet pill. Hard work pays and hard work will give you the results you want and let you keep the results, and eating healthier and exercising is free.

If you’re having trouble losing weight and you’ve considered the HCG diet or other magical weight loss pills please contact me first and let me help you. Do not endanger your life to lose some pounds.

Focus Topic: Calories...

            Okay everyone, we’ve gone over fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and a previous article on good fats vs. bad fats. You’ve got the nutritional basics down. Now let’s talk calories. This is a really complicated subject simply because caloric intake is different for everyone. People assume that 2,000 calories is the magic number that we should shoot for when in reality, some people require less and others require more. For example, an obese individual looking to lose weight should never drop from 4,000+ calories per day to 1,500. While it is true that if you want to lose some weight you need to eat fewer calories, you need to make this a gradual change. If you’re use to a 4,000 calorie diet (you might seem shocked at this crazy high number but you’d be surprised how quickly calories can add up) move down to 3,800 for a few weeks. Once your body is use to that, take it down another 2-300 calories. You can’t shock your body with major calorie changes.

            Everywhere you look people are going to tell you something different but my personal opinion is that no one, under any circumstances, should drop below 1,500 calories per day, even if it’s for a short period of time. (This is one reason why the HCG diet is so bad for you. I’ll be having a post on that one later for sure.) Your body requires a certain amount of energy per day just to survive. If you’re not giving your body the energy it needs in the form of calories, basic bodily functions begin to shut down because there’s not enough energy to do everything that needs to be done. Simple things like digestion are not happening because it’s more important for your body to supply energy to your heart and lungs rather than spending it on digestion.  Everyone’s basic metabolic rate (the rate at which you burn calories simply by living) is different which is why you won’t find an exact number. However it is safe to say that no one should ever go below 1,500.

            Besides the fact that it’s dangerous to deny your body the calories it needs to function at its lowest level, weight loss needs to happen slowly. I know that sounds crazy and that some of you wish you could drop 20 pounds this week but it’s just not safe. A safe amount of weight loss is 1-2 pounds per week (I realize the contestants on The Biggest Loser can sometimes lose up to 10 pounds in a week but please do not use this as an example of a good, normal practice). Slower weight loss means a slower drop in blood pressure. If you are losing too much weight too quickly you risk having your blood pressure drop drastically landing you right in the hospital or even in your very own comfy casket. I’m sure you’ve all heard horror stories about severely obese people having some sort of weight loss surgery and dying several weeks later. Part of that is because of what sudden weight loss does to your blood pressure. I know there are those of us out there who want to lose a lot of weight and that’s okay. Just please, please do it slowly.

            Another reason we want a slow weight loss is because weight loss and weight maintenance require lifestyle changes. It doesn’t do you any good to diet your way to the weight you want to be and then go right back to your old habits. That weight will be back on before you know it. Instead of “dieting” make the choice to change your lifestyle to a healthier one. “Dieting” is a temporary change to induce temporary weight loss. A lifestyle change helps us lose the weight and keep it off.